


Between Heaven and Hell

by Cassius_theCorrupterofSouls



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-07
Updated: 2015-09-07
Packaged: 2018-04-19 13:38:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,815
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4748414
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cassius_theCorrupterofSouls/pseuds/Cassius_theCorrupterofSouls
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean recalls the pain he has suffered in recent years, which he no longer knows what to make of now that an angel has rescued him from Hell.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Between Heaven and Hell

Dean didn’t know where to turn, where to run. The man, who had mastered the art of escape from his good but reckless father, was, for the first time in his life, at a loss. Not even the gates of Hell caused him to stumble and fall, as he did now (although he had feared them). No, that had been simple. The droning tick-tock of his sentence approaching and his and Sam’s race to stop it. The desperate measures which had all ended in vain: the clock struck twelve, whence the hellhounds came round and dragged him downstairs. The rest was history, or rather, misery.

Dean shivered at the thought, dislodging it from his mind, as he usually did when an uncomfortable memory recalled itself. He hated those damned dogs. Besides he was safe from them (at least for) now, them and all the wretched, mangled beings of the pit, recalled as he was to life. A miracle, they had all proclaimed. Bobby and Sam, Jo and Ellen. _Well, not exactly_ , Dean thought to himself. If Hell was hell, then it had been relatively uncomplicated. There, despite the constant agony of nails driven into his flesh, he had been free from the burden of choice. In fact, he rather much assumed (erringly) that he would never again know the will to choose, content as he was with his fate: a weak, selfish attempt to save Sam at the high-going price of his soul.

After his year was up, Dean had figured he was damned for good. So when he woke up one morning, alive and shockingly unscarred (except for that strange handprint), within the coffin of his cross-marked grave, to say that he was surprised would have been an understatement. And then to hear that he had been raised by an angel—a being whose existence he had repeatedly scoffed at—it was too much for him to bear. Let alone the afterword in which said-angel told him that his resurrection was the course of God’s will. No. If there was anything Dean Winchester knew for a fact, it was that God had surely not saved him from the hellfire he deserved. And that he would stand by. Without doubt.

Even though it was getting harder.

Especially with cherub-what’s-his-face dropping in every night he tried to sleep, causing him to doubly start: once from the nightmares, and twice from the pained, unblinking face that hovered two inches from his own every time he woke up. Frickin’ angels. What was it about being human that they didn’t understand? Besides from being far-out creepy (in a way unfit even by society’s low standards), they popped in and out of his dreams, teleported him backwards and forwards in time, and if that wasn’t bad enough already, they also (as a cherry on top of his all-too-cherry pie) told him to do shit that he really, _really_ didn’t want to do—period.

It was on days after nights like these, when Dean woke up, feeling, quite frankly, violated. And this particular day was no different from the rest. His skin still crawled, albeit he had been up for some time now.

* * *

Dean stepped closer to the one whose mercy had rescued his damaged soul. At least, even he could admit that he owed the angel before him his gratitude, if not anything else.

Castiel, angel of the Lord, searched Dean’s face for the barest hint to what the man was thinking. Even after his many hours spent scrutinizing him from afar and the few times in which they had talked face to face (well, sort of—Dean would never see his true face for its glory would turn him into ash; surely then, Dean would content himself with the plain form of his human vessel, trench coat and all), Castiel had only one inkling to the rhyme and reason behind the man known as Dean Winchester: ??? Nothing. Well, nothing about him at least. What Castiel did know, did consent with surprising honesty to himself, was the curious fact that he, an angel programmed for duty toward his Heaven’s throne, was desperately, and irrevocably, enamored by him.

“Cas? I can call you Cas, right?”

Dean spoke.

Cas stared, listening to the music in his human voice, cherishing its startling simplicity over the clangor and bells that rang up in Heaven.

“Uh, hello?” Dean arched his eyebrows in mock astonishment. “Anybody home in Casy’s head? No? Fine. Cas, it is then.”

Then Cas remembered he should respond. “Dean? You can call on me anytime by whatever suits your needs.”

Dean grinned; his face lit up like a little boy’s. “Bitch.”

Cas frowned, unsure of this sudden shift in their conversation.

“Never mind,” Dean laughed, sensing the angel’s confusion. “C’mon. Let’s go do something. What do you angels do for fun anyway?”

“Fun, Dean?”

“Yeah, Cas, fun. Like pie or strippers. Or,” Dean added thoughtfully, “ _pie and strippers_. You know Cas, fun.”

“That sounds great Dean, but I don’t believe, as an angel, I am allowed to do such things.”

“Don’t be such a bitch, Cas. Sheesh.”

“You keep calling me that. Why do you keep calling me that? Isn’t that a term designated for a female dog?” Cas’s dark brows furrowed with puzzlement. He had a hard enough time understanding humans as it was, let alone the enigma that was Dean Winchester.

Dean shrugged. “Yeah, well you said I could call you whatever I wanted, so…”

“I’m an angel, Dean. I thought I made that clear enough.”

“No, I know. You’re right. You did,” Dean explained hastily. “It’s just a joke, Cas. Something Sam and me would always say to each other. I’d call him a ‘bitch’ and he’d call me a ‘jerk.’ That’s all.”

“Oh,” Cas acknowledged, eyes lowered toward Dean’s feet. “Jerk.”

“What?”

Cas looked up, his blue eyes interlocked with Dean’s green. “Did I say it right?”

“Oh, uh, I guess. But usually I would have done something to irritate you first and then you’d use it.”

Cas nodded stiffly. “Good. Thank you Dean. It seems I have learned something today about you humans, though I am unsure which part of humanity this name-calling refers to.”

“Right Cas,” Dean smirked. “Can you stop looking at me like that, though? Like I’m some sort of specimen?”

Cas frowned. “What, Dean?”

Dean paused, searching for the words he hoped an angel would understand. With his hands in the pockets of his leather jacket, he turned the sides out in gesture. “Um, just ease up there buddy?”

Cas kept frowning.

“Relax.”

This seemed to compute, as Cas’s eyes eased into a flat stare.

“You know you could at least look happy while you’re at it,” Dean muttered, “instead of going around like you’re in pain the whole time.”

“Happy, Dean?”

“Forget it. Why don’t we go get Sam, darn college boy is probably doing god-knows-what at this hour, and go out for burgers, huh? My treat? Even though Sam will try to convince me and you and everybody else in the whole establishment to try the ass-tasting veggie burgers.” Dean shivered at the thought. Vegetables.

“No one has ever offered to go out for burgers with me before, Dean. In fact, I have never had one.”

Dean’s eyebrows lifted in surprise. “Really? Man, you don’t know what you’re missing. They’re the best freaking food on this god-forsaken planet. Definitely worth screwing your fellow angels over for. Believe me when I say I have ‘em three times a day. Of course with a side of pie,” Dean smiled at the afterthought. Pie. How he loved pie. Now if there was something to save this damned world for that would be it.

Cas felt an emotion drop low in his heart, which he would later term _disappointment_. As much as he admired Dean, his bravery and his loyalty, he could not imagine how this beautiful man could walk this earth without awe for its Creator, his Father, who had blessed Dean, and all of mankind, with the highest beauty: free will. The ingenuity which led him, like all the angels, to bow before them as God’s greatest creation. The realization broke his heart.

“God has not abandoned you, Dean.” His will sent me, he silently added to himself.

“I’m sorry, _what_?” Dean had been in the middle of a mental pie soliloquy—hardly listening.

“Why don’t you have faith, Dean?”

Dean grimaced. “In God?”

Cas nodded.

“I don’t need you to get all preachy on me Cas. I mean, technically, if someone was to believe in all that it would be me, wouldn’t it? With all I’ve seen. Most people wouldn’t know what to call it.”

“A miracle, Dean,” Cas answered with conviction. “That’s what they would call it. A gift from God. Why can’t you accept that, let alone thank me?”

“A thank you? If that’s what you want, go knock yourself out. There’s a Hallmark store not too far from here.”

“I’ll pretend I know what that means.”

“Good, and I’ll pretend that this conversation never happened.” Dean started off in the other direction, back towards Castiel, his deliverer from the wrath of Hell.

“Dean!”

Ready to leave, but unwilling to go, Dean turned around and faced the angel, feigning impatience. “ _What_.”

Cas marched toward him and dropped his hands upon Dean’s shoulders. “Look at me, Dean!”

For a moment, Dean looked, but just as soon, dropped his gaze.

Yet in that time, Cas manage to search his eyes, and through them his soul. “What is wrong with you? A man in your position should be elated, not broken! What is it? Do you not think that you deserve to be saved? That you could be saved!”

Dean shrugged, growing uncomfortable amongst this sudden and deep interrogation into the likes of his character. “That’s just it, Cas. I don’t. The things I did down there…” his voice trailed off, searching for the words. “No human would forgive me for them, let alone…God.” The wounded green eyes rose, implying: if there was one.

If Cas could have cried, in that moment he would have. “But I saved you.”

“No one can save me, Cas. Not Sam, not God, and definitely not some average angel like you.” And with that he turned to go.

“Dean, wait.”

“No,” Dean said, walking out of the parking lot and toward the trashy motel, his baby, and Sam—the only home he’d ever know beside the one etched in his brief, short childhood, the happiest moments of his life. He kicked an empty beer bottle that blocked his way as if it were any adversary, those old six feet under and those yet to come. “We’re done here.”

Cas didn’t follow. Even he knew his boundaries. Instead he simply stood and watched Dean stroll along nonchalantly as always, glowing under the dim light of the streetlamp.


End file.
